Page 151 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
Liv had remained silent in the back seat—far too pensive—and compared to her previous bouts of quiet, this one felt different. Off.
Then, as if she’d heard my thoughts, her eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. My chest tightened at the anguish in them—the first real emotion I’d seen from her since she got angry at the Wigwam Motel last night.
“Pull over,” Liv said, her voice so soft it was nearly drowned out by the engine.
I blinked, surprised, moving my gaze back to the road. “Huh?”
“Pull over,” she repeated, a little firmer this time.
Dove shifted beside me, her hand leaving my lap as she pulled the cap from her face. I slowed and pulled off the road, dust curling around us in plumes, settling like ash.
I tasted it.
I turned off the ignition and looked at Dove, who seemed bleary-eyed, her brows pinched together as she licked her dry lips.
I turned the stereo down—The Greatest by Billie Eilish softening to a quiet murmur in the background—and unclipped my seatbelt, twisting around to face Liv.
She sat with her arms folded, her sequined top glittering like fish scales in the sun.
The silence stretched into something almost unbearable.
Then she let out a breath both crippling and resigned, all at once.
“I lied,” she told us, looking up from her lap and meeting my eyes first, then flicking to Dove. “I lied to both of you.”
Dove and I shared a look, and I could feel trickles of anxiety begin to tingle down my spine as my fingers curled a little into the leather seats, bracing myself for whatever came out of her mouth next.
“I do remember how I died.”
It felt like the air had been knocked out of me—at least inwardly. Outwardly, I held it together, and Dove appeared to do the same. She regarded Liv with a look of such genuine patience, I wondered if she’d been waiting for this.
“I’m embarrassed by it,” Liv continued, her voice thick as she stared down at her hands, her fingers absently thumbing the sequins on the hem of her shirt. “But I think I need to… I need to tell you both. Before we get there and you find out anyway. Find out… last night”—her eyes cut to Dove—“the reading… it, it was everything. It all… it was all accurate. And I got scared. Then I got mad, because I had to face it. And I didn’t want to.”
A car flew by, stirring up more desert dust and a violent sound in the silence that had settled around us, save Liv’s voice.
“It was a Tuesday night,” Liv said, her eyes distant as she let the memory claim her—embracing what it was she’d been hiding from. “I was going out with my friend Bri, Jedd—my boyfriend,” she added, glancing at Dove. The fireworks guy. “And our other friends, Kyle and Ryan. We were going to a club called Nia’s—it was our favorite in West Hollywood, and we’d been getting in thanks to Ryan. He performed there. Drag. Nia was his sister.” She let out a puff of air—something like a laugh, though not quite. “His stage name was Dee Dee Liteful.”
Dove smiled at that—an encouraging one, even though Liv wouldn’t meet our eyes.
“God, he’d been practicing for weeks and making us all watch it over and over again.” Liv ran a hand through her pink hair. “He was going to do ‘Heartbreaker’ by Pat Benatar. He was sodramatic about it, but so damn good. I was looking forward to seeing it done on stage, under the lights, in full costume.”
Liv’s smile faded, and her brows knit together.
“Mom didn’t want me to go out. She said she had a bad feeling about it—but Jesus, she always hadbad feelings.” Liv’s head snapped up, her eyes imploring. “Like, seriously, I grew up with this shit. It was her thing—something was always going to go wrong. Something was always going to happen. Dad killing himself didn’t help that shit either.”
My mouth went dry.
“He woke up one morning and said nothing, just packed his lunch like he always did and left. As soon as he shut the door, she said, ‘The world will take him today.’ And then he died. Well—the world didn’t take him. He took himself.” Liv let out a breathy, disbelieving laugh, shaking her head. “She just kept going with this shit—worse than ever after that. You know, every time I left the house, it was, ‘Something’s going to happen,’ and then bad shit would happen!” Her voice rose, trembling with fury. “She manifested bad shit.”
I shifted uncomfortably.
And I swear I could feel the scar on my chest pulsing.
“I was leaving,” Liv said firmly. “I was done. I was done with her shit and her controlling behavior, and using that crap to keep me tied to her. Bri and I had planned the drive across the 66, and we’d planned new lives together. She begged me not to go, cried every day, told me I’d regret it. The lead-up was… it was intense. And the night I was going out… Bri and I were getting ready together. Mom came home early from work.”
Liv went silent for a moment, and a gust of wind rushed past us. Even under the warmth of the sun, I shivered.
“She was a nightmare,” Liv finally said. “Pleading with me not to go out. Saying it would end badly. That it all felt wrong and that we should stay with her instead of going out, invite ourfriends back to the house. I was over it. I was so fucking over it by then. We fought. I said some horrible shit to her—stuff I don’t think a well-worded apology could ever fix.”
